Dare to paint beyond the surface - Stephanie Scott Artwork

Daring Creativity. Daring Forever.

Daring Creativity is your backstage pass to the minds that shape our creative world. A podcast series inspired by the upcoming book by Radim Malinic, helping people start and grow life-changing careers and businesses.

Over the coming episodes, I will sit down with a broad range of guests: artists, musicians, designers, actors, technologists, and entrepreneurs who've discovered something powerful: that creativity isn't about perfection. It's about showing up with all your doubts, insecurities, and imperfections—and making them count.

Are you ready to discover what happens when you dare to create?

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Daring Creativity. Daring Forever.

Dare to paint beyond the surface - Stephanie Scott

November 10, 2025 • Radim Malinic • Season 3 • Episode 43

Stephanie Scott is an artist and designer who creates large-scale murals that transform corporate offices, restaurants, and public spaces across North America. Her work bridges decorative arts history with contemporary design, blending hand-painted and digitally-printed installations that tell stories rooted in community, nature, and timeless symbolism.

In this conversation, Stephanie reveals her journey from a supportive arts high school program to becoming one of the most sought-after muralists in the Kitchener-Waterloo region.

She discusses the creative philosophy behind designing work that thousands will see daily, the challenge of avoiding trends while staying relevant, and why she deliberately avoids having a signature style.

Stephanie opens up about the psychological pull of overwork, the dance-like flow state of painting, and why she believes human creativity will always have something AI can never replicate—the physical, embodied experience of creation itself.

Key Takeaways

Deliberately avoids having one signature style because she would "lose her mind" doing the same approach repeatedly—her creativity demands variety
Research process involves listing obvious ideas first, then discarding them to dig deeper beyond surface-level cliches and predictable imagery
Draws inspiration from decorative arts history: antique malls, old dinner plate motifs, Victorian engravings, tapestries, cabinets of curiosities, and historical design books
Aims for longevity over trendiness by incorporating nature, history, and universally understood imagery that won't feel dated in five years
Says yes to nearly every good opportunity or repeat client because optimism about potential makes her reluctant to turn down work that could lead somewhere interesting
Finds painting murals physically and mentally rewarding despite exhaustion—describes entering a "dance" with the medium where she feels the weight of paint and instinctively knows when to adjust
Works with tight timelines on international projects that have opened doors to larger clients and more challenging work beyond her local region
Refuses to use psychology as a design framework because she knows she'd "never emerge from that rabbit hole"—prefers intuitive creative decisions
Creates modular, adaptable designs that can work vertically and horizontally, extracted into standalone pieces—like visual puzzles requiring intense mental energy
Most of her large-scale work is hidden inside buildings rather than public exterior murals, seen daily by employees in lobbies, conference rooms, and office spaces
Learned to say no to projects she's not the right fit for but struggles to turn down work from valued clients or objectively good opportunities
Believes creativity-based work is safer than talent-based work in an AI-disrupted world because creativity requires constant reinvention and adaptation